"HORRIBLY PROVOCATIVE."

New Zealand Herald, Volume XLIX, Issue 1514, 9 November 1912, Page 6

"HORRIBLY PROVOCATIVE."

The British Parliamentary Secretary for Foreign Affairs denounces as "horribly provocative" the universal| ; defensive training urged by Lord Roberts. Germany may be as " horribly provocative'', as she likes, may turn her territory into an armed I camp, may persist in navy-building with contemptuous indifference to British attempts to secure an amicable arrangement for limitation of armaments; but because the Schusr ters say that the Kaiser is desirous of peace and that the German people abhor war, Britain" should wait like a lamb for the slaughter, and like a sheep beforo the shearer should not even lift up its voice. Every nation in Europe is armed and trained, able to defend . itself . against all comers or to pounce upon an unprepared enemy as we see the Balkan States pouncing, upon the unready and' misgoverned Turk. Only the islanders of the United Kingdom, the heart and centre of the greatest and richest empire, in the world, are unable to bear arms in their own ' defence, depending absolutely upon

the naval shield which Germany is I undoubtedly ' preparing with might and main to make futile and insufficient. It is alarmingly indicative of decay in British character and weakening in British. foresight that Englishmen with some claim to express the opinion of the Government of the day warn their fellow-countrymen against " horribly" provoking a foreign Power by taking reasonable and legitimate domestic precautions. Mr. Acland also . referred to the cost of national • defensive training, as though the expenditure of a few millions annually is to be avoided when the safety of the country is at stake. If a • single German army corps landed in England more loss would follow than would have maintained universal training for an entire generation, while any serious German invasion would inflict incalculable damage. Very evidently, the outspoken warning of Lord Roberts • was sadly needed at Home. He may, | indeed, • not be a great statesman — as Mr. Acland suggests—but as a great soldier he* knows more than : any statesman of the peculiar risks to which his country is exposed by her neglect of defensive precautions, and he is : justified, as a patriotic Englishman, in preferring a "horribly provocative" system which will make her safe to a timid policy which invites attack. When unpatriotic British statesmen warned the British public of the danger of commenting too freely upon the coup d'etat which gave a throne to. Napoleon 111., Tennyson voiced in burning lines the indignation of Britain and the great volunteering movement sprang into existence to "meet the storm." To-day there is no Tennyson to sing of British rights and British liberties and to pour the vials of a poet's wrath upon statesmen and politicians who give cowardly, advice and truckling counsel when confronted by a national peril. Yet it may be that there still glows in Britain the patriotic fire that has made . her great and kept her free, and that this fire Will flame into defensive action in' response- to the words of a soldier who loves his country. If Britain does n6t put her house in order lest she give offence to Germans then is her kingdom i passing; from her and being given to these - modern Medes j and Persians. whose. naval preparations alter not. -